Tales of tile in Anaheim

Louis Avina looks at the slate on display at Jolanta Tile on State College Blvd. in Anaheim. The store specializes in slate and stone carvings. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Louis Avina discusses the tile features at California Wholesale Tile on State College Boulevard in Anaheim. Avina gets excited about tile. The tile expert and contractor began working with tile and stone as a boy. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Louis Avina is a frequent vistor to Daltile's design gallery along one of the side streets off of State College Boulevard in Anaheim. Shoppers can then ask for references to shops that sell the products. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Anaheim's five-mile-square Tile Row has over 150 stores that feature tile, stone, slab and related items. Louis Avina shows us the endless deals and variety available in the area. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A tiled sitting area provides ideas for shoppers in the Bedrosians showroom along State College Boulevard in Anaheim. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A combo of glass tile and terrazzo found at Daltile at Tile Row along State College Boulevard in Anaheim. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A mosaic tile medallion found at California Wholesale Tile at Tile Row along State College Boulevard in Anaheim. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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An organic design on a tile found at Tile Row along State College Boulevard in Anaheim. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Modern mirrored and black tiles found at Anaheim's five-mile-square Tile Row. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Glass and stone combo found at Anaheim's 5-mile-square Tile Row. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

I think in a past life I was a tile setter, because I love all kinds of tiles. I don't know how to lay the stuff, and I probably never will. I'm generally utterly incompetent at most household repairs.

But I have serious tile fetish. I love to run my hands over its cool, polished surface. I love to look at it, to fantasize about how it would look in my house, especially those colorful, handmade Mexican tiles.

Watts Towers is like a shrine to me, with its stunning collection of broken tiles and pottery erected over 34 years into a folk-art masterpiece. Someday I'll go to the city of Puebla, near Mexico City, where the buildings are riotously covered in every color of tile in the rainbow.

Until then, I'll have to be content with Anaheim's Tile Row.

I used to work near Angel Stadium, and that's when I discovered Tile Row, which straggles along State College Boulevard and surrounding streets, encompassing maybe 5 square miles between Katella Avenue and Ball Road.

This district sprang up informally over the decades, and now includes some 150 businesses that sell tile, stonework and other flooring materials. Some stores are amazingly cheap. Others have secret back rooms with discontinued and second-quality items.

And some also have free designers who will help you figure out what you want to do.

There's probably enough tile and stone here to build the Vatican, and still have enough left over for Donald Trump's next building. (I kept trying to think of a joke about Trump's hair, but couldn't figure out how to fit it in. If you can think of one, send it to me and I'll include it in a future column.)

There's even a store that specializes in selling all kinds of slate. Jolanta Tile has an incongruously large selection of ornate marble statuary that would look just right in Trump City, or in the garden or foyer of your mansion, should you be in the market for a replica of Michelangelo's David or a life-size Neptune of the Waves.

One of the intriguing things about Tile Row is that it has no official Anaheim designation, no signposts, no boundary markers, no advertising, no map points. It's not a "business development district," it has no fancy bus benches or rows of palm trees as landscaping.

But nowadays it does have one thing: a dedicated website, statecollegeblvd.com, thanks to a guy named Louis Avina.

Avina has no official title, no big salary, no pension. He's just a guy who's fanatical about tile. He started laying tile at age 14 and still loves to do it, through his Mission Viejo company, Orange Coast Remodeling.

But when he's not working, he's walking around Tile Row with a clipboard, documenting the businesses and getting his fix of the latest product.

Avina took me on a three-hour tour of the area, which is roughly the equivalent of spending 30 seconds at Disneyland.

You can't even begin to learn about everything in that amount of time, but we did manage to have some fun.

We visited fancy showrooms with free designers, like at Daltile, and elegant emporiums like Bedrosians, where he showed us how to go into the back room to look for factory seconds for half-price.

I learned about buying "rectified cut" tile, which means it has been cut with sharp edges to give the appearance of stone with very little grout showing when it's laid.

I also heard one of my favorite words: haggle. Avina recommended haggling for better prices at the stores, especially if you're buying more than 500 square feet of tile. If you need 1,500 square feet, then he said you should certainly be able to cut a deal.

He also told me the most economical time to hire someone to lay your tile is between Christmas and Easter because business is slow then. People are done impressing their relatives for Christmas, and they haven't received their income tax returns yet, so they're not putting in new foyers or bathrooms.

If you've wondered about the difference between porcelain and ceramic tile, here it is: Porcelain is fired at a higher temperature, so it's more durable. We looked at porcelain tiles that looked remarkably like real stone at a fraction of the price.

But if you want vibrant colors, you need ceramic tiles. They're more likely to crack, but they also are brighter and more decorative. I'm more of a ceramic tile gal.

When I win the lottery, I'm going to take some cash over to Porcelanosa, which has an amazing showroom full of high-end kitchens and bathrooms with a contemporary edge. I felt like I was in a stylish penthouse in Milan.

I couldn't resist sitting in a bathtub, even though I don't usually like contemporary furnishings.

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